FRIDAY

Ahh!!! The weekend has begun. As I currently only need to take 12 credit hours this semester, the feeling of reward I get when walking out of my Chinese class probably isn’t as sharp or gratifying as that of some of my more overworked classmates, but that fact doesn’t bother me at all. The weather is beautiful, the breeze is nice and the promise of the evening hangs quite heavy in the air. First things first, however… I must take a nap.

Three hours later…

I emerge from my bedroom well rested and sharply dressed. Tonight is the culmination of weeks of planning and execution. Tonight, my fraternity will place pins on the pledges that we have so carefully recruited. My sweater vest and knit tie warms my torso while my arms are left subject to the cool breeze of the Prescott evening. I think back on when I was elected recruitment chair and had begun planning for the process that would end tonight. That date was more than four months ago. After hours of planning and excessive amounts of hard work and time given by my fraternity brothers and I, we had finally reached that point in the year where our effort would be rewarded by the addition of a whole gaggle of new brothers.

Let me tell you, they are quite the gang. The freshmen who have decided to pledge my fraternity are as numerous as they are energetic. I have never seen a group of young men more excited to take on the responsibilities of become gentlemen of a fraternity. There are nineteen of them; they are the largest pledge class we have had since I joined my fraternity almost four years ago! I am incredibly excited to see all of them be brought into the fold as full-fledged brothers of Sigma Pi.

SATURDAY

Today started out like any other, but a quest to buy a dryer for as little money as possible would lead my friends and I on a journey of incredible discovery and intrigue. There was really no contest as to where we would find the lowest prices on used drying machines; the answer is always the DAV.

The Disabled American Veterans Thrift store (or D’Ardon Verre as I like to call it) is the most wonderful thing in Prescott. I have never in my 21 years of glorious life encountered such a vast treasure trove of wonder. After visiting this thrift store on numerous occasions, I must say that Goodwill is a RIP OFF! Why pay $3 to $4 dollars for a simple t-shirt when you can find it at DAV for 25 cents. That’s right, a quarter. Guess what. Almost everything else is a quarter. The DAV is to bargain hunters what a Candy Store is to a 5 year old with a sugar addiction.

We quickly found a dryer and priced it at $25. With that done, we began our ritual of exploration. It took me about five minutes to find a military grade, green wool sweater with shoulder and elbow patches. After walking downstairs, I decided to look in the glasses bin to see if I could find any fun hipster glasses. I like to bust the lenses out of them and ironically wear them about. I found two. Right next to that was the hat box. I found a beret. In the pants area, I found black, military ACU bottoms. I started to calculate how much this all would probably cost me. “Three, maybe four bucks tops,” I said to myself. I was wrong. The lady only charged me $1.75. Incredible. I just bought almost all the items I will need for my French Legionnaire Halloween costume for less than the price of one of my regular trips to Taco Bell.

Afterwards, my friends and I headed to the Outlet Malls at Anthem in Phoenix to find some great deals on clothes. I didn’t buy anything, but I did follow my friend Alex around and try to convince him to buy terrible outfits. “Yes Alex, that fuchsia shirt does go well with your skin tone.”

That night, we traveled to Method Coffee, a great little, local café, to enjoy the music of “Open Mic Night”. After scoring a free, award winning latte, my friends and I retired to our condo to play a very hard fought game of Cranium. “Team Bros” (my team) won. Saturday…. Done.

SUNDAY

Brett (my roommate) and I awoke and decided to travel downtown and visit the Prescott Farmer’s market. We never made it there. When we drove by the courthouse, we saw a multitude of tents up and throngs of people. We decided to check it out. It turns out it was an antique sale. Mildly interesting. However, since we were already parked, we decided that we would explore a bit. We found that there is actually a nature trail straight through the center of downtown. In the four years I have lived here, I have not known this. We also stopped in a local art gallery and talked to the artist. He told us about the inspiration for his art. After snooping around a bit longer, we decided to head home. I then spent the rest of the day lounging around a pool in Prescott Valley. Life in the PRC is hard.